For those who came here expecting a new episode, BE RELIEVED! I’m going to post it a bit later.
Notice — This is a fresh translation of the prologue of the series, but I’m not planning to translate the entire earlier episodes again.
Why a fresh translation?
- It’s simply because I was curious how different it would be if different translators were to translate the same thing. And as the prologue is short, the effort won’t be as much, so I tried it.
- A second reason is that the prologue is the first thing people read when they begin the series, so I want to try translating it myself.
As for the quality compared to the translation of Soojiki, I cannot give out an impartial judgement so I will keep my mouth shut. Please judge it yourself which one you prefer. Soojiki’s translation can be found here Prologue.
Prologue — There was a monster house on the other side of the tunnel!
Read at translatedino.blogspot.com
“(Am I … alive…?)”
Utsurogi Kyousuke slowly opened his eyes. His head was spinning. He somehow raised his body and tried to confirm his surroundings, but his vision was clouded. When he held his forehead in his hands, Kyousuke realized something strange.
I’m bald!? In an instant!? He thought so, but immediately he understood that was not the case. It wasn’t only his hair that was missing. In the first place, the sense of touch in his hand was more cold and rigid. So no hair, there’s not even skin. He was wondering whether it was a serious injury, but there was neither the feeling of blood flowing nor flesh at all. Kyousuke was confused.
Wait, let’s sort out the situation.
For now, he took a deep breath (although as he breathed in, there was a feeling of air escaping from the area around his chest), then he tried to remember what had happened so far.
Everyone of Jindai High-school 2nd year class 4 was in the middle of a field trip. While the bus was on the move, everyone was singing karaoke, playing cards or simply making silly chitchat, fully enjoying their time as they pleased. Of course, Kyousuke was no exception. Kyousuke who belonged to the lower caste of the class as a member of the otaku group, was also enjoying himself talking with his friends from the same group in a way that wouldn’t stand out.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose. On a mountain slope with many sharp curves. In addition, the road had also become slippery due to the rain. Under such circumstances, a motorbike jumped out from the corner of a curve, and was going to cause minor collision. In a panic, the driver turned his steering wheel, and the bus’ body broke through the guardrail just like that.
Screams echoed inside the bus, after that, there was no memory of what happened.
In any case, the bus was in a fall accident. However, Kyousuke seemed to have been fortunate enough to survive.
No wait, that doesn’t explain why am I bald at all. Kyousuke tried to rub his eyelids and he noticed something even more terrible.
Eyelids, not there.
Fearfully, he softly crawled his fingertips around his eyes and found a rim-like something. He confirmed its size by put his fingers there and tracing around its edge.
It’s an eye socket. This.
What the heck is this? I have no eyeballs. On the contrary, I have no nose as well. No lips too. No ears too. Making up his mind, he again thrust his fingers inside his eye sockets and stirred, I don’t even have a brain.
“Just great! I thought that I survived, but this surely means I’m dead!!”
While shouting, his vision finally cleared up. Kyousuke did not have the composure to do a self that he didn’t have any eyes to see with. First of all, he confirmed his own hands.
“Uwaa! My hands are all bones too!”
It wasn’t just his hands, his rib cage was also in plain view. Originally, Kyousuke had a slender build, his rib cage used to stupidly stood out whenever he went to the pool, but that was nothing compared to this. His ribs were grandly on full display in all their glory.
Did I die? So I really died after all!? But what’s this, how come there’s not even a single piece of flesh left!?
In the first place, where am I? Looking at his surroundings, it was clear that this place was different from the mountain where the bus had fallen. It wasn’t the mountain slope where conifers were lining up, but a place with reddish-brown earth and many rocks scattering about.
Could this place be the afterworld? Or could it be that the me here is simply in a , and my true self is being flatten in the fallen bus right this moment?
As Kyousuke’s thought was going in circles, a blue semi-liquid object, ∗nuba~a∗, crawled out from the shadow of a rock. In spite of himself, he was startled.
Even more surprising, the sticky object raised a cute scream toward Kyousuke.
“Kyaa! Monster!!”
Honestly, this is a little vexing.
Kyousuke had somehow become a human skeleton, but at least he retained a human shape. Being called a monster by a monster wasn’t convincing.
No, wait.
Kyousuke immediately reconsidered. This voice feels somewhat familiar.
“You … Himemizu…?”
“Eh…?”
The sticky monster who took refugee behind the rock suddenly stopped. Then again, it timidly crawled back out to this side.
Himemizu Rin. She was Kyousuke’s classmate. She was a member of the track and field club, as well as one of the top 3 beautiful girls of the class. Honestly speaking, Kyousuke had little experience of properly exchanging words with her, but since her voice was the vigor of 2nd year class 4 and could clearly be heard from anywhere in the classroom, he remembered it.
Surprisingly though, she seemed to have changed completely.
“Umm, so you are … you are … umm.”
He involuntarily floated a bitter smile. In any case, Kyousuke’s standing was at the bottom of the class. A child like Rin who was always at the center of attention wouldn’t be able to remember him by his voice alone.
Rin however, while bouncing ∗tappon∗, declared like this.
“I know! Karaki-kun!”
“It’s Utsurogi.”
“Yes yes! It’s that!”
As if to express her agreement to Kyousuke’s words, Rin repeatedly shook ∗tappon tappon∗. It seems that Rin’s vigor remained the same even when she had just become a semi-liquid sticky monster. Or rather, this is soothing to watch aside from the matter of our human forms.
But still, even though she mistook his last name, it was surprising that Rin had recognized him. After all, there was almost no occasion where he raised his voice in the class.
For now, it seems that she is the real Himemizu Rin even if her appearance had transformed into something dreadful. It is encouraging that one of my classmate is here.
“What do we do, Utsurogi-kun. We were on the bus, were we not?”
“Ahh. I think the bus got into an accident, it fell, and we died … then we’re in this place now.”
“It feels like I’m seeing a bad dream. Utsurogi-kun is a skeleton, and I am like this…”
As they was having a nonchalant conversation, there was again a rattling sound coming from the shadow of a different rock. ∗Bikun∗, Rin jumped and hid behind Kyousuke. Well, even if you say hide, as Kyousuke’s whole body was a skeleton, she wasn’t actually hidden at all.
“UU … GU, OOOOOO…!”
With a deep growl as if resounding from the bottom of the earth, a 3 meters tall giant slowly reveal its appearance from the shadow of the rock. Rippling muscles. , uneven fangs grew in its mouth. From between its loose and disheveled hair, two big horn-like things grew. That’s totally an oni.
That was not the end.
From the shadow of another rock, a girl whose lower part was that of a snake slithered out, in addition, a pig-like monster with a fat belly, a mummy man whose body was entirely covered in bandages, a monster who had tentacles grew out from its whole body, so on and so forth, came out one after another. Kyousuke and Rin’s surroundings instantly changed into a monster house.
While being dumbfounded, they were surrounded from all sides. Kyousuke’s heart chilled. No, I don’t have any heart or liver now, but let’s just use the idiomatic expression of chilled heart for now. Or rather, we cannot escape like this.
As they were thinking so, the oni turned his eyes toward Kyousuke and Rin. ∗Bikuri∗, they trembled.
“Utsurogi and … Himemizu?”
If Kyousuke still had eyelids, he would be constantly blinking right now.
“…could it be, Goubayashi?”
“Ahh, it’s me.”
The oni nodded with his arms folded. Immediately after that, the snake girl saw her lower body and screamed.
“Wait, wh–what! What is this~s! What happened to my lower body!?”
“Ri–ridiculous ! My body has become a pig before I knew it debuu!!”
“Ah—…. What time is it now? Our destination, have we arrived? Somehow I seem to have slept quite a lot but…”
“Wh–what is growing out of my whole body … no way, are they tentacles…!?”
It was not just the snake girl. The monsters in this place looked at their own body one after another, and then when the surrounding monster saw it, they raised screams full of shock. Kyousuke firmly understood that all of their voices were his classmates’.
Apparently, all of his classmates who were involved in the fall accident of the bus were alive.
And somehow, they all seemed to have become monsters.
What the heck is going on? Kyousuke and Rin looked at each other’s face, and then he immediately remembered that Rin had no face.
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